In the News

Dodge man acquitted on electronic solicitation charge

By Staff reports
Dodge City Daily Globe
October 16, 2010

The former regional coordinator for the Kansas Division of Emergency Management was found not guilty of electronically soliciting a child for sex Thursday in Sedgwick County District Court.

The charge against Dodge City resident Matthew Mercer stemmed from an online Yahoo chat he had in October 2008 with an undercover Wichita police detective who was pretending to be a 14-year old girl, according to a news release from defense attorney Stephen Joseph of Wichita.

The prosecution claimed Mercer tried to solicit a 14-year-old to engage in an unlawful sexual act.

But Mercer told the court he thought the other person in the chat room was only pretending to be 14 because only people who are at least 18 are permitted in Yahoo chat rooms.

"I never asked the person to engage in any kind of sexual activity with me," the news release quoted Mercer as saying. "I just played along with that person’s fantasy."

District Judge Warren Wilbert ruled that the prosecution failed to prove either that Mercer believed he was chatting with a 14-year old girl or that Mercer solicited the police decoy for sex.

"This was an important trial because it helps define what kind of sexually explicit conversation on the Internet is legal," Joseph said in the news release. "Internet sexual fantasies offend lots of people, but they fall short of being crimes."

Prosecutor Marc Bennett told the Globe that the judge said while Mercer's behavior was offensive, it didn't amount to solicitation.